BlackBerry phones and Spot the dog

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Jacquie McNish, author and former Senior Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal.

We start with the former co-CEO of BlackBerry, who recounts the company's remarkable boom and bust.

Then, the creation of the Spot the dog children's books in the 1970s.

We hear the testimony of a US soldier who defected to the Soviet Bloc in the 1950s.

An author recalls how her 2010 book challenged Norway's immigration policy.

The inside story of the creation of the Women's Rugby World Cup in 1991.

Finally, the 19th century battle that inspired the Geneva Conventions.

Contributors:

Jim Balsillie - former BlackBerry co-CEO. Jacquie McNish - Author and former Senior Correspondent at the Wall Street Journal. Chris Hill - son of Eric Hill, creator of Spot the dog. Victor Grossman - US soldier who defected to the Soviet Bloc. Maria Amelie - author of book on Norway's immigration system. Alice D Cooper - organiser of the first Women's Rugby World Cup. Henry Dunant - instigator of the Geneva Conventions, diary read by his descendant Gabriel Martinez.

(Photo: Jim Balsillie, former co-CEO of BlackBerry. Credit: Visual China Group via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:08.9	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.2	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by
0:23.1	their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of heroism with me,
0:28.6	Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:36.4	Hello and welcome to The History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson,
0:41.7	featuring interviews from the Witness History podcast with people who experienced major events firsthand.
0:47.5	This week from the 1950s, an American communist who defected to the Soviet bloc.
0:52.7	I got this official letter from the Pentagon saying,
0:57.2	you were a member of one, two, three, six, seven organizations.
1:01.8	Report in to the military judge on the coming Monday.
1:06.3	Plus, how Norway's attitude towards immigration was challenged by a single book.
1:13.8	It really struck a nerve with a lot of people.
1:18.1	Everywhere I went, someone would tap me on the shoulder and say,
1:21.5	I'm in the same situation as you. Please don't tell anyone.
1:25.0	And the global phenomenon, which is Spot the Dog. We used to get loads and loads and loads of letters from all around the world,
1:28.9	mostly from kids in school whose teachers would organise a project
1:32.5	and then they would all write letters and have suggestions
1:34.7	and send in their own spot drawings, and it was really, really fun.
1:38.1	That's all coming up later, but first an example of the speed
1:41.3	with which a technology can sweep the globe
	...

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